Lewis Black

With arms flailing, fingers jabbing every-which-way, and a gravely voice ranting about hypocritical politicians or ridiculous social mores, comedian Lewis Black made a living spewing disdain and vitri...
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America has treated us to a few different ways to commemorate the life and career of the great Alfred Hitchcock. There was HBO's The Girl, an interesting take on the unparalleled filmmaker. Then there was the Fox Searchlight picture Hitchcock, which was your average biopic movie. But the greatest yet has got to come from Japan: in the below video, an intro for the country's release of Hitchcock, two Japanese actors give their rendition of the Psycho, Vertigo, and Rear Window director's long and varied résumé and personal history. And it's wonderful.
No matter what language you speak, the comedy in the duo's performance is loud and clear. As the first actor maintains a deadpan stature throughout the sketch as Hitchcock himself, his partner goes ape as the variety of characters leading the film maker's movies. Check out the glorious trailer below for the best Hitchcock story we've seen in years:
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[Photo Credit: YouTube]
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Although Debra Messing earned high praise throughout her run on Will &amp; Grace, her success ever since has been moreover lacking. Messing followed the hit NBC sitcom with a short-lived basic cable dramedy The Starter Wife, returning to her old network thereafter for the musical series Smash... which, although still part of the lineup, has been moved to Saturdays (never a good sign).
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But with all of the comical talent Messing has at her disposal, we hope that this next venture will be a revival of her acclaim: Deadline reports that the actress will be starring in a new CBS pilot, playing a compulsive liar whose penchant for spinning yarns begins to infect her home and work lives.
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The pilot comes from writing/producing team Julie Rottenberg and Elisa Zuritsky, who have worked on Messing's Smash as well as Sex and the City. The unnamed project, originally titled Mother's Day, derives from an Israeli comedy series.
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[Photo Credit: Robin Marchant/Getty Images]
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When General Hospital first scooped up the orphaned stars and characters of One Lift to Live — canceled in 2011 after more than 40 years on air, and set to revive as an Internet exclusive series later this year — it seemed to be hoping to hold fast to the long-running soap opera's fandom. Michael Easton, Roger Howarth, and Kristen Alderson first set foot on the GH set as their old OLTL characters John McBain, Todd Manning, and Starr Manning (respectively) in 2012, promising a new venue for displaced fans of displaced One Life fanatics. But while General Hospital is keeping this trio on its cast list, viewers might find it particularly perplexing when they return in the future as entirely different characters.
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TV Guide reports that Easton, Howart, and Alderson will indeed be revisiting their old General Hospital stomping grounds, but in all new roles. According to TV guide, the shift is a result of OLTL's revival and its new production company Prospect Park's reins on the McBain and Manning characters. "Prospect Park has been extremely difficult to deal with on this issue so GH basically said, 'Screw it! We'll create all new characters!'" a source tells TV Guide. "It's the only way GH can get past the problem and get on with business."
So, soap opera fans, as long as you're more of the good-with-faces type than the good-with-names type, this shouldn't be at all a problem.
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[Photo Credit: ABC]
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You can call Don Draper a hard worker, for sure. You can call him a fair boss, a loving father, and in regards to his second marriage — if you're willing to ignore some of of his antics — a decent husband. But you're not likely to call him the life of the party, the office jokester, the cheerful neighbor... he's not, in the traditional sense, happy.
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That's a theme that the new trailer for Mad Men's upcoming sixth season touches on... or, konks you over the head with. Don and Roger Sterling, two perpetually dissatisfied man-children, discuss the nature of happiness as they ask themselves if they can ever truly turn things around. And as the last scene in the video reminds us... it might not be a straight-away shoot for ol' Dick Whitman.
Mad Men returns to AMC on Apr. 7.
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Two decades of taking lives, tossing bodies in the bay, putting on airs as Miami's friendly, donut-wielding blood spatter expert... it's bound to catch up with you. And the eighth season of Dexter looks to be fueled by all of the ghosts of our hero's sordid past.
The new trailer for our final year with Dexter Morgan doesn't show much at all in the new, but instead lends its focus to the old: all of the men and women, good and bad, who have lost their lives thanks directly or otherwise to Dex's scathing Dark Passenger.
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And with the arrival of Season 8, this list is only going to grow. Who else will Dexter lose? Who will he find himself challenged to do away with? And will the affably demonic Michael C. Hall himself fall victim to the devils inside of him, topping this array of names off with his own?
Dexter returns to Showtime for its eighth and final season on June 30.
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[Photo Credit: Showtime]
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Fans of The Amazing Race might recall a baste taste in their mouths after last Sunday's (Mar. 17) episode, the fifth leg of Season 22, which set its competitors in Vietnam. The CBS series utilized a Hanoi-based war memorial site of a crashed American B-52 plane in one of its challenges, forcing contestants to search the site for a clue that would take them to the next of the episode's events. Not surprisingly, the challenge rubbed many a viewer the wrong way — the VFW (Veterans of Foreign Wars) organization included. As a result, The Amazing Race instituted an apology on the subsequent installment of the series, which aired Sunday Mar. 24.
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The Amazing Race host Phil Koeghan introduced the episode with the following statement: "Parts of last Sunday's episode, filmed in Vietnam, were insensitive to a group that is very important to us — our nation's veterans. We want to apologize to veterans, particularly those who served in Vietnam, as well as to their families and any viewers who were offended by the broadcast. All of us here have the most profound respect for the men and women who fight for our country."
The 22nd season of The Amazing Race will continue on, taking its competitors to locations like Botswana, Germany, and Switzerland.
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[Photo Credit: CBS]
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I feel like we just had an Arrested Development “S.O.B.s” moment. Last week ABC promised in their tease of “Victory,” the latest flame-out of Revenge, that we’d be in for an episode so shocking, with a final five minutes so revelatory, that we wouldn’t be able to contain ourselves. And what was the revelation? That Victoria has a secret son! Yes, an opportunity to add yet another character to whom we have no emotional connection. Since it was revealed that Victoria was 16 when she parted with this secret son, years before she seduced Conrad Grayson, it stands to reason that this kid is a good 8-10 years older than Daniel. By my reckoning there’s absolutely no male character on this show who could fit that bill, unless they decide to reveal that Kenny Ryan is secretly Victoria’s child. It has to be a new character.
The new character to whom we had no previous emotional connection who was introduced last week, Mr. Eli James, is an incredible rookie when it comes to the art of revenge. Most of the plot of “Victory” concerned his efforts to publicly expose and humiliate Ms. Haywood, the evil foster mother who’d lock him and Emily in a dungeon. The evil foster mother whose house Emily was accused of burning down. The evil foster mother who had kept the letters from David Clarke, intended for his daughter, for herself. Eli was still under the impression that Emily hated her father, since all he could remember was her frantically reading Mason Treadwell’s The Society Connection with a flashlight under the sheets. (In one of the flashbacks to little Amanda reading that book she even put the inaugural red X over a picture of her father. Sad.) He told her that those letters—he was able to steal back one—made it sound like her father really did love her. Basically Eli is like Donny from The Big Lebowski—he’s just waltzed in to our story without any awareness of what’s already transpired, like a child wandering through the wilderness. You really just want to tell him to “Shut the f*** up.”
‘Revenge’ Recap: Return of the Evil Foster Brother
The Graysons thought they could use the Amanda Clarke Foundation to increase their stature in the race for the governor’s mansion. Not that Conrad’s attitude was going to help them achieve victory anytime soon. Upon getting poor poll numbers he declared the people who gave him a high unfavorability rating “bores sitting by their rotary phones.” That’s the kind of thing you say to get votes!
Making us wonder even more if “Victory” is the most ironic episode title Revenge has ever given us, Nolan and Aidan began their quest to trade Carrion to the Initiative in exchange for Padma’s father. The plan was that Padma herself would give the flash drive with the program to Trask while Nolan and Aidan waited atop a roof and acted as snipers to kill all the Initiative members and rescue Captive Daddy. Nolan was a little taken aback at the idea that they’d actually be killing people, but, as Aidan put it, “they’re not people, they’re terrorists.” It’d also mean, if they were successful, that Padma and her father would have to go deep into hiding. So deep that they’d have to end their romance. At least until the Initiative is destroyed. That seemed like a step in the right direction. That plot would be resolved, Padma would be sent packing, and we could tighten our focus on Emily’s main goals, such as they are. He promised his former CFO, though, that the moment the Initiative was destroyed he’d be running to her on whatever beach she’d be lounging. Going into hiding means a cushy lifestyle, I guess, when you have billionaire tech mogul friends.
‘Revenge’ Recap: Okay, Maybe This Show Hasn’t Gotten Good Again
Jack hasn’t been too convincing at hiding his simmering rage. He’s obviously planning something big against the Graysons. Why the hell else would he accept being the Grayson campaign’s “Joe the Plumber”? (Could there ever be a more demeaning request of someone than to ask them to be your “Joe the Plumber”?) His assertion to Emily that he needs to focus on Baby Carl—and, anyway, he has no leverage over the Graysons once that laptop was stolen—was none too convincing. His main objective in “Victory,” though, was to find Kenny Ryan so he could pump him for information about what really happened on the Amanda that fateful Labor Day weekend. Declan used some of his wharf rat skills to pocket the phone of the prep school kid who first got them in league with the Ryans, and, presto, there was his number. Jack tracked down Kenny to a playground. Either Kenny was there with his kid or we now know he’s a sexual predator. Jack confronted him about supposedly owning that boat that rescued him. Kenny denied it, but gave him the videotaped conversations that went on between Nate and Conrad. Jack could see for himself that Conrad all but ordered a hit on Amanda. His hatred will turn into an icy chill that can only be expiated by…revenge.
NEXT: Revenge proves once again that the ultimate payback can only take place at a press conference.
So it seemed like Eli was actually double crossing Emily by working with Ms. Haywood to get a big Grayson-funded payday. Which, from the start, didn’t really make sense because he already turned down $100,000 from Emily last week. The writers of Revenge were basically just asking us to forget what happened last week, so that this could somehow make logical sense. We also knew he was triple crossing Ms. Haywood because he didn’t tell her his partner in this endeavor was really Amanda Clarke.
Nolan and Aidan launched their ridiculous sniper scheme. It failed, of course. Trask didn’t bring Padma’s father to the rendezvous site and instead threw her in the back of his trunk. Nolan prevented Aidan (or “Lee Harvey” as he called him) from taking a shot at Trask, so the Initiative goon got away Scot free, with Carrion, Padma, and Padma’s father. Total failure. “You really need to consider another line of work,” Nolan told Aidan. Indeed.
‘Revenge’ Recap: Did This Show Just Get Good Again?
Victoria and Eli held their press conference for the Amanda Clarke Foundation. And as expected Eli hijacked it to expose Ms. Haywood’s history of abuse and neglect. He even went so far as to include other alums of Haywood House who’ve since turned to drugs and crime. Haywood immediately took the stage, said, “Even as a boy he was pathological,” which isn’t exactly the thing you say to make yourself look good. She revealed, however, that it was Eli who burned down her house and let Amanda take the fall for it, something that caused her to spend five years in juvie. She, like her father, was forced to spend time in lockup for a crime she didn’t commit.
So that forced Eli to up his ante even further. He would kidnap Ms. Haywood, throw her in her own dungeon and force her to give back David Clarke’s letters. Only problem was, she had sold those letters years ago. Guess who was the purchaser? Mason Treadwell. Now the jailbird bon vivant journalist had leverage over Emily. She visited him in prison and he told her the first of undoubtedly a whole bunch of tasty morsels from those letters: Victoria gave up a son she bore when she was 16 to the foster care system.
Wait…that was the shock we were promised? Another red herring? Sigh. Were you as disappointed by that “reveal” as I was? And when will the writers of this show realize to stop adding new characters?
Follow Christian Blauvelt on Twitter @Ctblauvelt
[Photo Credit: Bob D'Amico/ABC]
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As would befit a show about traveling the world, The Amazing Race has taken us (and of course its contestants) to a number of very cool places in its 22 seasons. Relatively unexplored regions of Southeast Asia. The Australian Outback. But I have to say that last night's expedition to the Kalahari Desert bordering Botswana, has to rank with the coolest legs the show has ever produced. For one thing: BUSHMEN. For another: BUSHMEN LULLING SCORPIONS TO SLEEP WITH THEIR MOUTHS. I already know, with six days to go, that the sight of that will be the most rewarding thing I see on TV this week.
Before teams could start debating whether it was spelled "desert" or "dessert," though, they had to get the hell out of Vietnam. Where fifty years ago this would have been achieved via airlift, everyone instead made their way to a travel agent who secured their 6000 mile flight to Maun, Botswana. Sensing a boring segment here, producers had added a wrinkle to the clue — teams needed to identify where, exactly, the city of Maun was located before they could enter the travel agency. But smartphones or, in this case, Internet cafes have rendered obstacles like this meaningless. In the end it was just an excuse to play Country Bumpkin Music Cue #3 while Chuck &amp; Wynona took turns guessing at Maun's country. "Kenya? Turkey? The Czech Republic?" Family Guywould have kept them reciting country names for another five minutes, but thankfully the twosome soon settled on Botswana. And with that? All teams were off on the same flight.
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A few puddle jumpers waited in Maun to carry everyone, and their Lion King jokes, to an airfield in the Kalahari. The small plane size meant just two teams could fit on each (three on the third), which offered a brief but welcome look at who thinks what of who at this point in the game. Bates &amp; Anthony? All over Caroline &amp; Jennifer, or in Bates' words "12s out of 10." Not even Spinal Tap offers that high a rating! The country singers, in turn, admitted to crushes on their hockey playing travel companions. Newlyweds Max &amp; Katie were not feeling the same way about flight-mates Meghan and Joey, who they'd hoped would be "literally anyone else." But that's every odd-couple pairing. Eventually they have to love each other, Joey's maniacal need for attention and Katie's weirdo desire to keep her intelligence a secret just a hurdle to overcome.
Then the Bushmen showed up and turned what was hovering at a solid "B" into "A++ would recommend your services to anyone." It all started nonchalantly enough. Teams had thrown their stuff into seven waiting FORD ESCAPEs, barreling into the desert. But what should appear, like a loin-clothed mirage? Bushmen, of all shapes and sizes, lined up for what we could only hope was more than just window dressing. They stood patiently while teams read their clues. And those clues said we were getting a BUSHMEN TEAM TAGALONG. You know when you've wanted something all your life without being able to articulate or even identify what that something was? For me it's Bushmen piled into the back of a product-placed Ford. But we'll get to that.
First, one representative from each team traipsed off into the desert with a team of Bushmen to dig for and capture a scorpion. Which, minus the inherent freakiness in handling that particular insect, isn't much of a challenge. But that's missing the sand-filled forest for the acacia trees — NONE of this episode was about "challenge" or "competition." No, the Kalahari leg was about cultural exchange. For instance: the Bushmen see a lion stalking just outside their camp perimeter. What do they do? Jump into a tree with the skill of an indigenous Mario brother, while a totally confused Caroline tries to understand what's going on below. Or take the traditional method for calming an agitated, strike-ready scorpion: cradling the thing just inside your mouth while you run it back and forth like a harmonica. By what process of trial and error the Bushmen arrived at this particular trick is question for another day.
Once teams had successfully trapped their scorpion, they were off to the Detour. But not without their trio of Bush Bros, who hopped in the backseat like they were being carpooled to peewee soccer. "Yes, we're probably undoing almost 20,000 years of delicate environmental conditioning," van Munster thought to himself, "but it's seriously going to be funny as hell." Anyway, they offered much-needed support for the two Detour routes: "Fire" in which teams — you guessed it! — started a fire; and "Fowl," where teams had to construct a trap meant for the local guinea fowl. Of which we didn't see any, come to think. Maybe that lion (king) ate them all?
Standard fare for a non-dramatic leg. Bates &amp; Anthony, Jennifer &amp; Caroline, Joey &amp; Meghan, and even Chuck &amp; Wynona fairly well mowed down their chosen Detour. Only Max (did we learn before he was a cigar salesman? There is such a thing as too perfect a job) &amp; Katie really struggled to make fire. Maybe they'd never seen an episode of Race's more raw sister show, Survivor? Eventually they gave up and hopped over to "Fowl," where Mona &amp; Beth were similarly behind. One team seemed to surge. Then another. Editing would suggest they finished at roughly the same time, and that Mona &amp; Beth momentarily doomed themselves when they went back to their car (instead of running to the finish line) but this was a false cut — they were always ahead.
Tired, too smart, lacking cigars, Max &amp; Katie made their way to the Pit Stop (here the Meno a Kwena Safari) in seventh place. But wait. Could that be a glint in the all-seeing eye of Phil Keoghan? YES! For the second episode in a row the last place team was not eliminated, but left to race another day. "Honeymoon in Africa!" crowed an elated Max. "That tent's gonna be rockin'." Dude, we were doing so well there for a second and you just killed it forever.
[Photo Credit: CBS]
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Farouk Shami can't be the only one who misses last season's Aubrey O'Day, who the hairstyling businessman styled into his personal blow-up doll during Celebrity Apprentice 12. After all, during this All-Star Celebrity Apprentice, we're left with "stars" as creative as a sample of Lil Jon's lyrics. Meaning, of course, that this crop is simply, as the rapper would say, "Okay." Two teams with the same ideas to shill Farouk Systems, a company that's managed to market itself on multiple seasons of Celebrity Apprentice and still remain largely unknown to both the viewing public and participating celebrities? Very few companies have such a skill for mediocrity. But, without further ado, let's get into the night's 10 most ridiculous moments of Celebrity Apprentice!
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10. Everybody Hates Stephen BaldwinIncluding Matt Rich, his own publicist, who Baldwin tracked down by telling Marilu Henner to tell her Miss USA source to tell his publicist that Stephen needed his help. No wonder Stevie B loves God, the only person he seems to have a direct connection to.
9. "Do Things You Are Not Told."The most dangerous words of encouragement Lisa Rinna could have ever told Gary Busey.
8. Farouk's F**ked-Up ProductsIf Shami's friendship with Donald Trump wasn't enough of a reason to not invest in his products, the mogul's dandruff powder — which gave Marilu the exact type of volume one would hope for if they were hoping for a bird to flap through their hair — certainly set him head and shoulders below the hairstyling competition.
7. Gary, the AccountantParticularly an accountant intent on thinking "outside the box," which is crazy since we know all of Gary's thoughts come from inside a box of smelly markers.
6. Carol Baldwin's CrushStephen's mother, the face of the Carol M. Baldwin Breast Care Center, told cameras of The Donald: "I think he's so sexy … I would give his wife a run for her money." That's one way to get another check delivered to the cause. (Another is equating The Donald with God.)
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5. "I Just Heard From My Joan Rivers That My Trump Died Yesterday."Also known as the worst innuendo you could ever bring to the bedroom.
4. Feeling a Rectal TransmissionCRAZY. That stands for Gary's penchant for Creating Ridiculous Acronyms for Zucchini Yarmulkes. Okay, so it turns out Gary's better than I am at acronyms. But I can't believe watching Sunday's episode of Celebrity Apprentice meant that I missed the Symphony of Farting Trombones on NPR.
3. Dennis Rodman Shines. Literally.With this new look (see pitcure above), Dennis is pretty enough to marry Dennis... again.
2. Dennis Solves the Homeless CrisisMoney? Healthcare? Homes? Psh. What the homeless really need, according to Dennis, is a handful of D-listers giving them stylish makeovers.
1. Omarosa's Immortality Deal or No Deal model Claudia Jordan was forced to pack her suitcase faster than Howie Mandel's hairline receded after failing to watch last week's episode, in which LaToya Jackson was fired for not bringing Omarosa into the boardroom. Really, Claudia? You tell Donald Jr., that Omarosa was your weakest link, then bring back Lil Jon, also known as Farouk's favorite American of all the Americans, following your loss? It's official: Ocean's Twelve is no longer the worst thing introduced to audiences in 2004. Turns out Omarosa is harder to kill than Trump's television career.
[Image Credit: Douglas Gorenstein/NBC]
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While zombies may find their fuel in brains, the zombie genre runs on another organ entirely: heart. The best zombie flicks aren't the goriest, or even the scariest. They're the movies imbued with humanity — the movies with a hero at the center striving against all odds to save, or avenge, his or her loved ones. The movies that ask us to place ourselves in the scenario, to wonder how we'd fare in a living dead takeover, to ask how far we'd go for our friends and family. In the new trailer for World War Z, star Brad Pitt is willing to go to the ends of the Earth for his wife and daughters, traveling all the way to a fallen-off-the-grid Russia to find the source of the apocalyptic outbreak.
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While the trailer and poster (see below) are grim and haunting, the story seems to maintain a sensibility of hope. Shots and quotations from the video suggest that there just might be a few untapped secrets to this disease that will prove key in humanity's prevalence. But more importantly, even, to the human race's survival is its heart: the willingness to fight on for the people and things we care about. That is what Pitt's character represents in the new trailer for World War Z, and that is why director Marc Forster (Stranger than Fiction, Quantum of Solace) and his end of the world picture looks to be one for the books.
Follow Michael Arbeiter on Twitter @MichaelArbeiter
[Photo Credit: Paramount Pictures(2)]
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Title

Summary

With arms flailing, fingers jabbing every-which-way, and a gravely voice ranting about hypocritical politicians or ridiculous social mores, comedian Lewis Black made a living spewing disdain and vitriol, both as a stand-up comic and as a weekly commentator on the popular mock news program, "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" (Comedy Central, 1996- ). Black turned the role of the angry curmudgeon railing against the injustices of our times into a cottage industry, becoming a favorite among an increasingly skeptical and cynical audience that has ranged in age from teenagers to the elderly. Prior to "The Daily Show," Black toiled in stand-up comedy, performing at clubs and venues across the United States, while trying desperately to become a successful playwright. But it was his grumbling grouse character developed over the years in front of a microphone, that finally launched Black into celebrity, a slow process that brought the comedian eventual triumph at twice the age of other comedians around him.